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Order of the Golden Rapier -   Guthfrith Yrlingson

7/11/2016

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RESEARCH 

I know this extremely gentle, talented, man, however, I wanted more information on him and his persona in order to fill things out a bit.  So I checked into the East Kingdom Wiki, no entry.  I checked FB, yup, there, a few pictures.  I pulled those to give me some inspiration.  The pictures I have seen of Guthfrith is with a hat, so I am looking for his style of clothes and a fashionable hat.  One of the things that I have pointed out for portraits is that there is sometimes one thing that will read X person.  In this case, a particular style of hat will identify Guthfrith.  I then did a general Google search on Guthfrith, and finally came up with some background on the Barony of Ruantallan's page, where Guthfrith and Isobel are Baron and Baronness.  www.ruantallan.eastkingdom.org/our-baron-and-baroness/

"Our personas are firmly rooted in late fifteenth century England these days (despite the C10th Danish name Guthfrith…hmmm). Guthfrith has a wide range of interests including heavy, rapier and siege combat, archery, woodworking, metalworking and miscellaneous A&S. Isobel’s main passion is C15th costuming, but any A&S and particularly anything that creates more C15th ambience is fun (Isobel also looks forward to acquiring a longbow and learning to shoot things more accurately). Occasionally you may see us disguised as sixth century Anglo-Saxons." from their Baronial page.

Since this is for a Golden Rapier award, I first looked into rapier manuals.  The Arma is one of the best resources for fechtbuch's.

www.thearma.org/manuals.htm#.V2BWBzXiONd

I was looking for English, maybe Danish, but just getting some ideas.

I started with Talhoffer's Fechtbuch, which is a German Manuscript, and has three different editions, one dated 1443, one dated 1459, and one dated 1467.

Edition 1467 had several pictures of rapier fighters with hats.

www.thearma.org/talhoffer/t16.htm

http://www.thearma.org/talhoffer/t24.htm

www.thearma.org/talhoffer/t23.htm

Th 1459 edition one also had some nice pictures, and was subtitled "Fight Earnestly".  I found pictures again with hats  page 196 through page 200.  It is a pdf download, so be aware.  There are some nice equestrian pictures in there, so I need to note that for future reference.  Some of the pictures are pretty gory, with chopped off hands, chopped off heads, and blood spurting.  I won't be using anything from those.

www.thearma.org/pdf/Fight-Earnestly.pdf

There is also I33, one of the earliest known rapier manuals, German on sword and buckler from 1295.

i.imgur.com/OgjnwZP.jpg

And Durer's Fechtbuch from 1520.

http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/Duerer.htm#.V3E4MzXiONf

After reviewing them, I decided to go with Talhoffer, plate 23, but use elements from I33 for shading, painting in a different way than I have done in the past, more watercolor shading, rather than true gouache painting that would happen in illuminated manuscripts.

I wrote the wording.  My procedure is to type it up on the computer, print out two copies and then practice. I print two copies because I often mark up one with how many characters, how many lines, notations on where I started and stopped.   I did a few practice runs and then did the layout for the scroll.  I wanted to have the Golden Rapier prominent and center, words at the top and fighters at the bottom. 



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I had wanted to experiment with the lovely, looping ascenders and while they are not perfect, I'm happy with the consistent height.  More practice is needed.

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Inking up the Golden Rapier and the figures using a crow quill pen and also Higgins Eternal Ink.
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Once I started my painting, I just forgot to stop and take pictures along the way.   I'm still working on taking pictures that have appropriate lighting.  I have received some hints from camera savvy friends, so hopefully future photos will be clearer.  I used mosaic gold for the gold in the Golden Rapier, and lapis lazuli from a batch of period pigments that I had and a lapis lazuli that I had greyed out a little more for the left hand fighter.  I also used permanent white, yellow ochre and payne's grey (all Windsor Newton brand) for the rest of the paints.  I always like the way that the ultramarine pops.   The paper was the opaline vellum that I bought at Pennsic last year.  It is closest to vellum without the price and I like how it takes just about anything without buckling.  I highly recommend it and will be picking up some more this Pennsic.
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Closeup of figures.
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Final scroll.

Reflections:

I liked  the way this came out, it is detailed, but you really have to look carefully for the details.  My calligraphy is improving, but I still need more practice for better period looking spacing.    As I said earlier, I need to improve my photography. :-)
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